Get unstuck in life and Happy/excited about where you are going!

How to Change a Problem with ONE Word!

“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?”

Courtesy of Funk Dooby – Flickr

Captain Jack Sparrow; a quirky, lovable, contradiction of a Pirate, who would rather think his way out of a problem than fight his way out and who can be surprisingly wise.

Who here has had a problem?

So was your problem the problem? or was your attitude the problem? How could you have shifted your attitude and changed the problem?

A Question:

What’s the difference between a Problem and a Challenge?

Or to put it another way –

Would you rather have 1) a problem or 2) hiccup? Would you rather have 1) a problem or 2) snag?

To me a “Problem” sounds like, well a PROBLEM. A hiccup or a snag, well that just slows you down a bit.

Internal Dialogue

Your internal dialogue makes all the difference. How you phrase questions to yourself makes a HUGE difference in the quality of your answers and your life.

Imagine if every time something happened you didn’t plan on or expect it was “Horrible” or an “Epic Failure”, maybe it was a “Total Disaster”! and every time something good happened it was, “ok” or “alright”. How do you imagine life to be using those descriptions?

Now flip it and when something bad happened it was “A little hiccup” or “just a speed bump”, maybe it was “a bit of a challenge” and when something good happened it was, “AMAZING!” or “FANTASTIC!”, maybe “You LOVED IT!”

How different is life with just a small change in internal vocabulary?

Does it change “…your attitude about the problem.”?

3 Step Exercise:

So here’s what I want you to do:

1) For the next 3 days pay attention to how you describe things to yourself. Do they help you and make life better and easier or do they make things more difficult then they need to be make life more challenging?

Make a list of words you find you’re regularly using that are not helpful and in the next column write a new word to use.

Courtesy of James West – Flickr

change: mad -to- peeved

frustrated -to- misunderstood

angry -to- displeased

Ok -to- FANTASTIC

good -to- AMAZING

You get the idea. Pick words which work best for you.

For the negative emotion to a less negative try changing it to something that sounds silly to you. Maybe picture yourself saying it like Marvin Martian the Bugs Bunny character. Talk about taking away the power of the negative emotion. “I find that you somewhat annoy me, it appears I have encountered a small hiccup, I am curious about what will happen next….”

For the positive emotions to positive POWER emotions make them something that lights you up inside! “We had the most INCREDIBLE time yesterday, we were positively UNSTOPPABLE, my wife was RADIANT…!”

2) Next replace/rephrase how you’re talking to yourself so that it makes life better.

3) Finally leave a comment about how you changed your internal dialogue, words you substituted and the changes you felt.

Bonus Step:

4) Have a SUPER FANTASTIC day and help everyone you meet to have a MAGICAL day also!